Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an artificial blood vessel.
Discussion of Related Art
A vascular occlusive disease, generated when a blood vessel is narrowed or almost blocked due to lack of exercise and dietary habits, has been increasing year by year.
In particular, typical examples of cardiac disorders are coronary artery disease and peripheral vascular disease caused by ischemia that occurs when a blood vessel supplying nutrition and oxygen to the heart is blocked.
As a method for treating a blocked blood vessel or a substantially blocked blood vessel, a surgical method has been often chosen. As a method generally adopted as the surgical method, there is a method that tries to solve a problem of narrowness by cutting a problematic portion of a blood vessel and inserting and connecting an artificial blood vessel.
An artificial blood vessel 10 illustrated in FIG. 1 is a typical example used in the method, wherein the artificial blood vessel 10 has been developed as an alternate means for guiding the flow of blood when a blood vessel of a patient is narrowed by some factor or a function of the blood vessel is remarkably degraded.
The prior art artificial blood vessel 10 includes a tube 11 having a hollow part through which blood flows, and is formed as a single tube in which a pleat 12 is formed in the tube 11.
However, in an anastomosis between the artificial blood vessel 10 and a blood vessel near an organ in which periodical beating is generated such as the heart, it is extremely difficult to perform manual suturing. Particularly, the longer the surgery time, the more difficulties the surgery has, and there is a problem in which risk of causing complications is increased when the surgery time is too long. Particularly, suturing should be quickly completed to prevent a lot of blood from leaking when applied to the aorta.
Therefore, an artificial blood vessel, capable of being safely and quickly applied to a surgical site when surgery in which insertion of an artificial blood vessel is performed, is required.